Spain agreed on Tuesday to release secret documents about the tapping of the mobile phone of Catalan president and ERC party leader Pere Aragonés by agents of the state-run National Intelligence Centre (CNI) using Israeli spy software Pegasus – a scandal known as the “Catalan Gate”.
In December 2023, Aragonés accused the CNI of tapping his mobile phone using the Pegasus programme between July 2018 and March 2020, when he was vice-president of the Catalonia region. Patricia Plaja, spokesperson of the Catalan executive said on Tuesday, El Periódico de Catalunya said:
“It is proven that we were spied on, it was approved by Citizen Lab – the “Catalan Gate”- then an independent expert, a report by the Mossos (Catalan police) and therefore repeatedly ratifies that what they denied from the beginning happened and it is clear who did it and the prosecution cannot hide nor the judge, it is taking too long.”
Government spokeswoman Pilar Alegría explained that the government took the decision at the request of the Spanish courts. According to her, it is a “partial declassification” of secret documents relating to spying on Aragonés. She emphasised that this declassification “in no way” affected Spain’s national security.
Last July, Aragonés filed a lawsuit against the Israeli group NSO, which sells the Pegasus system, and against Paz Esteban, the former CNI director whom the government had sacked days earlier after the start of a spying scandal involving several Catalan leaders, Sánchez and several ministers in his government.
The Catalan president then claimed in court that he was the victim of three separate attacks on his mobile phone in early January 2020, coinciding with Sánchez’s rise to power. However, a later expert report extended the timeframe in which Pegasus could have compromised Aragonés’ phone from July 2018 to March 2020.
The coalition government of PSOE and Sumar has always been ready to declassify this secret documentation if the courts demanded it, and always with the necessary legal guarantees.
Alegría emphasised that the progressive coalition was interested in the early disclosure of this spy scandal, but did not want to answer questions about whether the government would declassify more documents.
The news of the partial declassification of the secret documents comes just a day after the case of illegal investigations into Catalan separatist leaders under the government of former Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy (PP/EPP) was leaked to the press.
